Graphics display devices, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs), are currently used in a host of electronic devices such as laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and portable video game consoles. A problem that all portable electronic equipment contends with is battery life. Battery life in power portable computer equipment can be extended if the power consumed from the battery is reduced. It is well known that the power consumed by a processor-driven electronic device can be reduced (and therefore battery life extended) by slowing the speed of the processor that runs the device. In electronic equipment that use graphics accelerators to drive a graphic display, power consumption can be reduced by slowing the graphics accelerator.
In prior art methods, the memory clock speed was reduced to one or two discrete frequencies. Prior art methods simply reduced a clock speed. They did not attempt to match actual processing requirements to memory clock speeds or graphics processor clock speeds so as to minimize power consumption without sacrificing graphics display performance. A power reduction method and apparatus that matches a graphics processor and memory clock speeds to the actual processing requirements would be an improvement over the prior art.